[ljacone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CookSux

Cartoons =/= Tokusatsu

I wouldn't categorize Doctor Who or Star Trek as toku either. There aren't any "super-hero" elements in it. Doctor Who maybe, but I'd purely leave it as being pure Sci-Fi. Godzilla even is a hero for Earth I'd say.

There is no requirement for superhero elements in tokusatsu, though. The first "modern" tokusatsu was Gojira, and there are no superheroics in that film -- only a monster against the military and scientific minds of a nation. The daikaiju eiga didn't have a truly heroic monster until 1962 (King Kong, from King Kong vs Godzilla), although I suppose you could argue for Mothra in 1961 (sympathetic if nothing else).

Moonlight Mask would introduce the superhero aspect of a tokusatsu show in 1957, but the concept didn't really skyrocket until 1966 with Ultraman (itself a followup to the non-superheroic Ultra Q). Kamen Rider, Spiderman, what would eventually become the Super Sentai, the Metal Heroes, and others from various other studios helped create what we generally think of as tokusatsu nowadays, but its not limited to that.

I was on a podcast with several guys once, and I mentioned that while I did not watch much anime I was a big fan of tokusatsu. Another guy on the show asked what that was, and someone immediately said "Oh that's Power Rangers." So when I corrected the guy and explained the whole "live action special effects" aspect, he was dumbfounded. Reminded me of the arguments I used to have back in junior high and high school (which was tantamount to "VR Troopersis not a sentai show!" or "Masked Rider is not a sentai show!").